The strong US policy response to the 2008-09 financial crisis raised concerns about its impact
(spillovers) on other countries, with great focus on the monetary stimulus but little attention to
fiscal policy, despite their combined deployment. Using a sign-restricted structural VAR
approach, we study the trade spillovers of the post-crisis policy mix, by assessing the joint impact
of monetary and fiscal policy. We find that aggregate trade effects, as reflected in the trade
balance, varied across time, reflecting the different timing of fiscal and monetary stimuli, with
overall positive spillovers in the immediate aftermath of the crisis. At the same time, reflecting the
different transmission mechanisms of monetary policy, we find that the effects differed greatly
between trading partners with fixed and flexible exchange rates. In general, our results highlight (i)
the importance of studying fiscal and monetary policy spillovers jointly in order to avoid
attenuation bias from omitted variables; and (ii) that trading partners' exchange rate regimes are of
first order importance in determining the impact of policy spillovers.